Bittersweet
by Pinyan
Summary: Fox and Fara confront each other years after Fox meets Krystal on Dinosaur planet. I tried to avoid excessive angst. Story is finished. Rated for a joke at the end.


DISCLAIMER: Starfox is copyright Nintendo. Fara Phoenix is copyright Benimaru Itoh, although I highly doubt he'd come all the way over here to sue lil' old me. This little bit of text is MINE. 

Forward: I kept waiting for someone to write this fic, or one like it, but it never happened. Finally I decided to just do it myself. Not my first bit of fiction, but the first one I've felt good enough to place on the 'net. Tell me it sucks the big one, tell me it is the greatest goddamn piece of work since the Iliad, but above it all, do tell me what you think. 

For those of you who don't know who Fara Phoenix is, she is a non-canon character who appeared in the Nintendo Power magazine starfox comics in 1993.   
  
  
  
  


_ Distance makes the heart grow fonder... of someone else._   
_ -Unknown_

_ I sit beside my lonely fire,_   
_ And pray for wisdom yet-_   
_ For calmness to remember,_   
_ And courage to forget._   
_ -Aide_   
  


Fara had heard that somewhere. Whether it eased the pain or added to it, she couldn't tell. She'd been sobbing into her pillow for... what? An hour? She looked at the clock through bleary eyes. Two hours. Two hours moaning like a schoolgirl... 

But it had hurt. She still loved Fox McCloud. She hadn't seen him for years- nearly a decade- she shouldn't have been surprised that he'd found someone else. She was almost surprised that she'd have this type of reaction to finding out who he'd met. 

_"Hey! Fara? Fara Phoenix? My god! How have you been?"_

_She had been shopping for her groceries; picking ourtwhat type of tobasco sauce to buy when he'd found her. She'd turned, recognizing the voice immediatly._

_ "Fox!"_

_ "It's good to see you. Jeez, how long has it been..."_

_ "Nine years."_

_ He'd whistled his astonishmant. "Can't believe it! I thought you were dead!"_

I wouldn't mind being dead now, she thought. He was right, though, back then. Of course; good old Fox never made any assumptions he didn't think were one hundred percent right. 

When he'd returned to Corneria after his final raid, the one where he'd destroyed Andross' base and effectively killed and scattered his main vangaurd as well as his largest defensive battalion, he'd found her to be a victim of a bombing of her office building by a final, desperate attempt by the Venomain forces still in Meteo. Hers was the only prominent structure to be destroyed. It was logical for him to leave; she was his only real link to the planet besides it being his birthplace. Even she thought she was dead, buried under the rubble as she was. She'd been trapped there for two days, and then the rescue team had found her. 

Her first thought after they pulled her out wasn't about food or water. It had been about fox; I have to let him know I'm still okay! 

She'd been disheartened to learn that he'd embarked his heavy transport and left the planet. They hadn't bothered to leave their destination- why would they? Who'd look it up besides their groupies now? He was off wandering. Still, she had a small hope that he'd come back. 

Over the years she'd tried to steal herself to the event of him finding someone else. It was likely; it wouldn't have been fair for her to expect him to live the rest of his long life pining over his supposedly deceased lover. She had actually thought it was logical, which it was. She'd known it would hurt, but she didn't think it would be excrutiating as it was... 

She moaned as another torrent of sobbing washed over her; it seemed her body had taken a break from the grief. Rested, it had resumed its previous expressions of malcontentedness. 

_"Nope. I was lucky I'd started home early that day. No one in the top floors had survived that disaster..."_

_ "I'm glad you made it." He'd said._

_ She'd placed the tobasco sauce bottle back on the shelf and had begn strolling down the aisle with him, in a state of feathery elysium. Fox had finally come back to her. Now they would get married and she'd have her company and he'd get a job as a police officer or something and they'd have a house by the river with three children and they'd grow old together-_

_ "Krystal! Come on over here! I've got someone for you to meet!"_

_ The name had registered in her mind like a weight had suddenly been chained to her neck._

_ "Ayuh?" Came the reply from the other side of the spices aisle. It sounded exotic, and worse, feminine._

_ She'd had to lean against the aisle slightly- not enough to cause any worry, just enough to steady herself. The denial set in immediatly. She's not his lover. He hasn't forgotten about me! If I could remember him, he could-_

_ Then she saw 'Krystal' come around the corner and _of course her eyes are gorgeous, she thought. Fox told me once that he always looked at a woman's eyes first. But that doesn't mean anything! 

_Then she'd seen the way he'd looked at her. His face had glowed, and that was the moment when her last matchlight of hope had been snuffed . The glow in his face, she'd seen that same look once upon a time. It pained her beyond measure to see that it was directed at this blue newcomer instead of herself._

_ "Hi?" Krystal had asked. Exotic accent. My, you've snagged one haven't you, Fox? Fara had thought to herself, inwardly. Inwardly, she felt like barfing. Outwardly, she willed her ears to stay up and her eyes to stay cheerful, willed her smile to stay._

_ "Hello." She'd said. She didn't continue any, because if she did she was afraid she'd go into one of the strings of curses and oaths her great uncle had been prone to. First the shock, then the outrage, and now comes the anger. The furious, white-hot yet smoldering anger that comes when you realize that the love of your life is with another person._   


How had she known all the metaphors? She'd never experienced it before. Were her feelings that intense? 

They must have been, she thought as she dragged herself out of bed and out of her room, toward the kitchen for something to drink. A drink drink. She never drank, only during the holidays, but this was as momentous an occasion for her as any person's encounter with any god. 

_She'd seemed to hide her inner feelings well enough, because they hadn't reacted as though they were intimidated._

_ She'd taken her eyes off of Krystal's face. Oh, how she'd hated that face there, so content and happy with HER GODDAMN LOVER_

_ "What?" Fara asked, blinking._

_"I said I can come and visit you tonight, if you'd like." Fox had said._

_ Oh boy, would she like that. "Sure! But I don't have anything to right my address on-"_

_ "That's fine, I can just look you up. Your last name's still-"_

_ "Yes." She'd said, a little more forcefully than she'd meant to. "Fara Phoenix."_

_ Had he winced? She couldn't have told. "Okay. I'll come by at - um, I have a few appointments. Would you mind if I stopped in late tonight? Nine or ten-ish?"_

_ "That would be okay." She'd said, unable to keep her eyes from flicking back to Krystal. The way her eyes had looked must have scared the poor foreigner. Foreigner, that's all she was. A blue foreigner to this planet, and foreign to this relationship. Go back to your goddamn planet, you pastel..._

Mentally, as she poured herself the wine she'd won as a second place prize to an art show, she scolded herself for thinking that. "Racist." She said outloud without realizing it. 

A knock on the door leading to the hallway. It was Nine-fifty-two, and fox had visited. She hadn't even put her groceries away yet. She was a mess! Standing here, holding a drink and streaks from her tears still on her face... there wasn't time to wash up- What could she use as an excuse to delay? 

Her thoughts were interrupted when he opened the door. Another of his old habits. Tears, fine. That would have to be known by him eventually. But not the wine. She wanted to appear before him with at least that much dignity.She barely had time to hide the wine bottle she'd opened and her glass behind the breadbox. 

"Hello?" He called, poking his head through the door- a habit he'd always had. Why had she had to forget that at this fragile moment? 

He saw her, and his reaction was some odd mix of fear, and guilt, and maybe a twinge of pain. Surprisingly, she found herself wishing that he hadn't had to see her like this. Only a little. 

"Fara?" He asked, gently. 

She didn't reply, only looked away a little, unable to meet his concerned face. 

"Are you okay?" He said, taking a step toward her. 

Suddenly, she didn't have the heart to use any of the biting, outraged, furious lines she'd come up with. _He knows,_ She thought. 

To her own astonishment as much as Fox's, she'd chuckled a little rather than break down again. "No, I guess not." She'd said. There was no malice in her voice. 

He opened his mouth to say something, but then instead walked over toward the couch and sat down as if he were exhausted. 

"I don't know what to say, Fara. I can't say I'm sorry. Krystal is..." 

"What I used to be." She said, sitting in an arm chair across from him. 

He winced. "If you want to put it like that. I still thought of you, Fara. I..." His voice broke. "I still loved you." He suddenly looked at the floor. "I can't devote myself to you, but..." He mumbled. His eyes were watering. 

She leaned forward. "It's not fair." She said quietly. 

He shut his eyes even tighter, and shook his head. He looked like a small boy who'd lost his favorite toy. 

Fara never thought of herself as a the type of woman who'd make a good romance novel, but upon later reflection, she supposed this moment in her life she was strong and wise enough to fit the part perfectly. 

"I still love you too, Fox." She said, kissing his forehead. "But it would be wrong for us to... put Krysta through this. She hasn't done anything, you know." 

"It's Krystal." He said, regaining composure. "But neither have we, goddamnit! We were together." 

"Then we got split apart. I'm no fatalist, Fox, but I don't think it was never meant to be, either. You're lucky you found Krystal after you left. You're happy with her, I can see that much." 

"Yeah..." He said. Then he laughed, the type of chuckle Fara had made earlier- the type of laugh that takes the place of tears when you've had enough of them. "She knew exactly what was going on between us. Sometimes she scares me, how sharp she is. She told me to say sorry to you, if it would do any good." He looked up at Fara. "If you're going to be angry at anybody, Fara, for god's sake don't be angry at her. I was the one who started it. I-" He choked up suddenly, and his speech faultered. "It was me, not her." 

"I'm not..." She began, but corrected herself. "I'm angry, but not at you, Fox. Or her. Just... things didn't work out the way we wanted them to. It's a callous phrase, but it applies. There's nothing we can do about it. You enjoy your life, Fox. I'm not too old to find anyone new. I'm a lot younger than you are." 

"Yeah," he said glumly, not looking up. She could tell he hadn't liked hearing that. He kept his muzzle pointed downward. "You seem awfully stable about all of this." 

She chuckled again. "Oh, not me. I was so busy crying I haven't even put the food I bought away yet." 

"So..." He said, after a few minutes. 

"Yeah?" 

"I guess I should go, now." 

"Yep." 

"I'm sorry, Fara. I-" 

"You aren't sorry, and neither am I." She said sternly. 

He looked at her, mildy taken aback. 

She continued: "It was good while it lasted, Fox. I don't regret any minute of it. Do you? And I want you to be happy, and you'd be more sorry than you are now if you sent Krystal packing back to her home planet." 

His expression at this was reflective in a very odd way. "You're right, of course. You always won all of our arguments." He grinned sheepishly at her. "Thanks." 

"Thank you, Fox, for coming over here." 

She walked him back out to his car, in the hotel's parkade. "Keep in touch?" He asked her. 

"No." 

"WHAT? Why the hell not?" He almost shouted. 

"That would be picking at the scab, and once I found someone new we'd never be comfortable around each other, and neither would our spouses... unless..." 

"Unless?" 

She studied him carefully for a moment. "Fox, do you swing?" 

"Swing?" 

"Yeah, you know...." She swayed her hips and gave him a look that you could have poured on a waffle. _"Swing?"_

He looked at her blankly. Then, he was horrified. 

She laughed, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm only kidding." 

She kissed him on the lips. His face went back to it's blank look, although he smiled a little. Probably with relief. 

"Well, Fara, you've made it impossible for me to forget you now." 

She laughed loudly. "Well, that's good. Goodbye, Fox." 

He hugged her one last time before getting into his car. As he backed out of his space, he waved. 

She waved back. "Goodbye." She said quietly, not without sadness, but also with more happiness. "It was good to see you a last time, Fox." 

Back in her hotel room, she sipped the glass of wine she'd poured, more because she didn't want to waste it than any other reason. It was an expensive-looking nine-year old Merlot. She reflected how the taste mirrored the end of her relationship with Fox McCloud: Bittersweet. 

END   


Like it? Hated it? Tell me so. Really, tell me what you didn't like. Blind praise offers as little help as not reviewing in the first place. 


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